Minimalist and welcoming

A view of the living room area in a new home built on the site of a 1950s residence in Montreal. The 5,000-square foot rebuilt house is priced at $3.495 million.

Photograph by: John Kenney
, The Gazette

Using the footprint of a mid-century modern split level skirting the edge of the mountain, architect Fadi Coussa has created a four-level dwelling that is both minimalist and welcoming, a light-filled oasis in the heart of the city.

From its massive double mahogany doors to curtain walls with eye-popping views of the city, the space is an homage to the cubic form, light and space, with a nod to the influence of the most innovative of residential architects, Frank Lloyd Wright.

"We added volume, so we chose to build over the original brick, projecting out above the footprint of the ground floor," says Coussa.

This cantilevered effect is influenced by Wright's waterfall house, famously the world's first cantilevered residential dwelling.

They reclad the wood exterior with Indiana limestone with bevelled edges and built upwards.

"The split-level style was really nice in the 1950s, but the wood had deteriorated," Coussa says. "We kept the shape but changed the material and the volume.

"The bevelled edges show the horizontal lines, because when you add volume on a small frontage you don't want to get a vertical impression."

The bevelled line of the brick and the horizontally cut windows give more width and help the taller house look proportioned, he says. They added more height on the left side of the building as well, and between the two created a glass-covered atrium. "The house is filled with light."

Inside the house, an expansive main floor is open to sweeping views of the city; the living and dining rooms curve seamlessly toward the kitchen, which was placed at the front of the house. Angled slightly to face south and west, the main floor is lit with tall windows that in the living room descend to the pale oak floors, with a gas fireplace slotted into the west wall. "Whether it's cloudy or sunny, the view is beautiful from these windows," says co-owner Dorothy Karkoukly.

"The interior challenge was to open everything," Coussa says, "so from the door you can see the view through the glass railing on the cantilevered balcony off the dining room and through the floor to ceiling windows in the living area."

Floors throughout the house are white oak with a pale grey tone, even on the stair treads. The staircase that rises up on the west side of the house was a major preoccupation in the design, Coussa says. "It had to be located so it's convenient on all floors, and we wanted to take advantage of the west sun so we put a curtain wall there."

In addition, the stairs are designed without risers, with stainless rails and glass sides. "The staircase becomes part of the transparency," he says.

This feeling of transparency is evident also in the living room windows, which are set right into the floor without any mouldings. "We have no crown mouldings and no baseboards," Coussa says. "No angles, so even the extra support beams are with the composition, so no arches.

"This is a completely modern, minimalist house, outside and in."

At nearly 5,000 square feet, the house also contains five bedrooms, three on the upper floor and two on the garden level, a den on the garden floor and family room on the upper, facing the mountain, as well as 3? bathrooms, a laundry and exercise room and two-car garage on the garden level. The basement level contains storage and the mechanical features of the house.

The house is painted white throughout, but the light grey ceiling in the expansive entryway hints at the second dominant colour. Karkoukly used a slim curved mahogany sideboard and massive Italian Obi ceiling light, made of ivory silk ribbons, to signal the spaciousness and mood of high style.

Around the corner is the Poggenpohl kitchen, a German import that includes white Calacatta marble with heavy grey veins for the backsplash and grey-white quartz for countertops. All wall cupboards and shelving are in white lacquer, topped with handsome brushed stainless lamps.

These pale tones are anchored by the dark underbody of the island and bar that separates the room from the dining area, a striped wood known as teak décor lava. Suspended above the island, two Quebec-made Olga ceiling lamps, in spun aluminum.

In the family room on the second floor, Karkoukly chose bold artwork, a grey sectional sofa with Missoni pillows and in the master bedroom, the soft, warm tones of turquoise and brown. In the master bath, a soaking tub from Wetstyle, Carerra marble tiles for walls and floor, and a fine mosaic floor in the glassed-in shower with rainhead.

At the garden level there are two bedrooms and the "entertainment room," decorated with a white leather sectional and bold red pillows, complimented by a large canvas.

The rebuilt house is on the market, priced at $3,495 million, and though it has never been lived in, it is being shown fully furnished thanks to Karkoukly's ingenuity and style — she and co-owner Santa Aquilino have created model rooms with loans of furniture from Roche-Bobois, carpets from IndiPort, lamps from Au Courant and artworks from the Joyce Yahouda Gallery.

This renovation has raised a drab mid-century modern to a luxurious contemporary level — and dressed it beautifully for the occasion.

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